


A Charmed Hour and a Haunted Song

by ShimmertoyourShine



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Kiss, First Time, Fleetwood Mac References, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Gay Sex, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, The Odyssey References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-19 02:45:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19347925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShimmertoyourShine/pseuds/ShimmertoyourShine
Summary: The walk to the Bentley is silent, amiable. Aziraphale doesn’t even question that it is waiting for them, though he’d taken a cab from Crowley’s flat that morning. Crowley had wanted it to be there, and so it is. They both slide into their usual positions, Crowley behind the wheel and Aziraphale in the passenger seat beside him. There is a certain comfort in their well-worn routine, but also something just ever so slightly changed, he thinks.





	A Charmed Hour and a Haunted Song

The sun has dipped below the trees and a cool twilight is settling over St. James’s Park when Crowley glances over at Aziraphale. “Nightcap?” he asks, uncharacteristically[1]. The angel blinks momentarily and Crowley stands, dusting his hands off on his trousers before turning back to his companion expectantly.

“Yes,” says Aziraphale, gathering himself. Their late lunch had lingered until it had become an early dinner, champagne and the world and something about a nightingale crooned over soft piano music, before ending, as it had begun, in their customary spot by the duck pond. He oughtn’t have hesitated – it was something they had done dozens of times, sat on this bench, after champagne but before wine or perhaps brandy. But he does, because everything they had done dozens or hundreds or even thousands of times before was, as of just this morning, now something they might very well never have done again and it gives him pause.

Gives them both pause, he suspects; though Crowley remains as unreadable as ever behind his dark glasses there is something stilted in his movements, something ever so slightly fractured about the way he draws a long breath and rolls his shoulders in the dimming light, evident only because it highlights the absence of his usual serpentine grace, like some kind of bodily stammer. “Yes, lovely,” Aziraphale finishes at last, rising to his feet and following behind the demon, their shadows cutting long lines across the grass in the lamplight.

The walk to the Bentley is silent, amiable. Aziraphale doesn’t even question that it is waiting for them, though he’d taken a cab from Crowley’s flat that morning. Crowley had wanted it to be there, and so it is. They both slide into their usual positions, Crowley behind the wheel and Aziraphale in the passenger seat beside him. There is a certain comfort in their well-worn routine, but also something just ever so slightly changed, he thinks. The leather just ever so slightly firmer than perhaps it had been the last time he’d sat here, the barest hint of new-car smell in a car that hasn’t been new in ninety years. If Crowley notices this too he gives no outward indication, but there is still something stiff in his demeanour, Aziraphale thinks; a shallowness to his breath as though he is anticipating something.

He probably would never have noticed had he not literally been wearing the man’s face only hours ago. He knows the weight and the heft of those long limbs now. The reach of those thin fingers that grip the steering wheel as the Bentley weaves through the darkening London streets. He feels his cheeks grow flush with the realization and turns away to look out the window, watching pedestrians come and go under the streetlights, blissfully unaware of how close to the end of existence they have all so recently come. Which is how he realizes that they aren’t in Soho, as he’d been expecting, but Mayfair.

“Thought we’d go to mine,” Crowley says before he can ask, reading the question in his face as he turns back towards him. “Had a Bordeaux I was saving – want to see if it’s still there after,” he pauses, glancing briefly at the angel from behind his shades, “in light of recent events.” Another pause. Then quieter, very nearly hesitantly, “That all right?”

“Of course, dear boy,” Aziraphale murmurs. It’s unusual for Crowley to seek out the comforts of home; he is likelier to make his way to the bookshop if comfort is what he’s seeking, though Aziraphale knows he’d never admit to it. Still, he can’t blame him for being rattled, for needing to set eyes on his plants and his artwork, to verify that the things he classifies as ‘home’ remain. That they have never once, in all the years they’ve been meeting at the Ritz and then retiring for nightcaps, changed up this routine and gone anywhere but the bookshop surely signifies nothing more than this, he tells himself. A man’s desire to see his house in order and nothing more. A return to Ithaca.

Crowley’s jaw is set as he nods and shifts into second. As they pass the Royal Academy Aziraphale notices that his fingers on the steering wheel are white. Leaning forward he switches on the Blaupunkt, suddenly needing music though the drive is barely long enough to warrant it. Inexplicably, Fleetwood Mac fills the car. “Well that’s new,” Crowley says beside him, an eyebrow arching above the rim of his sunglasses.

“Not even bebop,” Aziraphale replies and earns a small smile, the edges of Crowley’s lips turning up. He relaxes slightly. They’re all right. They are going to be all right.

 _And to those that I love, like a ghost through a fog,  
Like a charmed hour and a haunted song,  
And the angel of my dreams, _Stevie Nicks warbles, soft and gritty, as they turn towards Crowley’s apartment complex. _I said it’s funny that you understood. I knew you would._ He feels the colour rising in his cheeks again. Crowley is pulling into his parking space, engaging the brakes and shifting into park. _And we both pretend, I’m no great pretender._

The radio snaps off when he removes the key, the song cutting off abruptly. They both sit for a moment in the silence, just a beat longer than maybe they otherwise would, and then Crowley is unfolding himself from behind the wheel, climbing out and slamming the door with a “Coming, angel?” tossed over his shoulder as though it’s the most natural thing in the world. And it is, Aziraphale reminds himself. It’s the same thing he always says.

They take the lift up together and then they’re at the front door. Aziraphale notices the brass snake on the handle for the second time in as many days as the demon is hunting for his keys, and then they’re crossing over the threshold into the darkened flat. “Mi casa,” Crowley says, flicking on the lights and slipping off his jacket. Aziraphale’s eyes are still adjusting as he saunters towards the kitchen; he can hear the clink of glasses and the rattle of cutlery in a drawer as he searches for a corkscrew. “Bordeaux’s still here,” he calls out, “Thanks Adam.”

Aziraphale ventures cautiously into the flat. The long, dark hallways aren’t exactly what he would call inviting – the grey walls are austere and the temperature is still just this side of chilly, which was not quite what he had been expecting when he’d ventured inside wearing the other man’s face, given Crowley’s proclivity for heat. One of the vestiges of his serpentine origins, he supposes, thinking on how close Crowley always sits to the fireplace when they’re at the bookshop. He shudders slightly, deciding he prefers not to think about fire and the bookshop in proximity to each other at the moment. He hasn’t even seen it yet, he realizes. Crowley assured him it was all there and he believed him, because why would he lie about something like that?

“ _You’re a demon,_ ” he remembers saying. “ _It’s what you do_.” He cringes inwardly. How cruel of him to say. How cruel of him to think. A demon, certainly, but a liar, never, his friend. His best friend.

A flicker at his side and he turns, finds Crowley beside him proffering a glass of wine. He’s already sipping his own glass, the deep red more vivid in the mostly colourless space. “Make yourself at home,” he says as Aziraphale takes the drink. “Can’t remember the last time you were up here.” They don’t toast.

“Aside from yesterday I don’t think I’ve ever been,” Aziraphale replies after a fortifying sip. It’s a particularly nice Bordeaux and he hums in approval as the sharp flavor coats the back of his tongue.

“What?” Crowley is incredulous. “You must have done. How long’ve I lived here? Since the seventies at least,” he tilts his head back, thinking. “No, sixties. Have you really never been round?”

Aziraphale glances at his friend, unsure of quite what to say. “The bookshop has always been more convenient for both of us, I suppose. More public. Less suspicious for you to be there than for me to be here.”

Crowley smiles wanly. His shades are gone, Aziraphale realizes, and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Suppose that’s not so much of an issue now. For the time being, anyway.” He sips his wine. “Well. Uh, welcome. Feel free to have a look around if you haven’t already.” He turns and makes his way towards what might charitably be called the living room and takes a seat on a couch that, Aziraphale can attest, is terribly uncomfortable. It’s grey and angular and nothing at all like the overstuffed furniture that complements the cluttered coziness of the bookshop. Crowley drops his head back and shuts his eyes, though he’s still clutching his wine and Aziraphale doubts he plans on going to sleep.

He hadn’t really explored the flat last night. He’d tiptoed in wearing the demon’s clothes, glanced around briefly, and then perched himself on that abomination of a sofa and produced a wrinkled paperback copy of the _Odyssey_ he’d fished out of his own jacket before they’d parted ways. He hadn’t even turned a light on, now that he thinks of it, reading by the thin trickle of moonlight that slipped in through the window until the sun came up and something on Crowley’s infernally complicated wristwatch had chimed, letting him know it was time to leave for the park. He’d been so on edge, nerves jangling in his borrowed skin, that he’d reread the same page over and over for nearly an hour before he’d realized it.

“You know, I didn’t really,” he says now, answering Crowley somewhat belatedly. The demon raises an eyebrow but doesn’t look up.

“Really?” he asks. “You weren’t even tempted?”

“I’m an angel,” Aziraphale huffs more out of habit than conviction. “ _Resisting_ temptation is what I do.” Whether through graciousness or exhaustion, Crowley chooses not to dignify this with a response; the various tarts and other confections consumed at the Ritz this afternoon would say otherwise, and they both know it.

Aziraphale gravitates now to the other end of the room, spotting a turntable perched atop a low shelf filled with slim vinyl albums. “A record player? Really, Crowley?” he remarks, a pleased fondness in his voice that he doesn’t try to hide. “Hardly the latest technology. I though you had one of those machines with the blue teeth?”

Crowley rolls his eyes, but there’s no malice in it. “Yeah, I do. But it doesn’t quite sound the same. I’ve had that old thing since the seventies and I just… never gave it up, really. ‘Sides, vinyl’s come back in lately. Humans have a way of recycling things over and over again when they forget why they abandoned them in the first place.”

“How perfectly sentimental of you, my dear,” Aziraphale teases him gently, smiling now. Crowley rolls his eyes again.

“Oh shut up. Go and put a record on.” He’s grinning, and Aziraphale can feel a weight lifting as they settle back into a familiar verbal pattern, one they’ve maintained for six thousand years now. He’s on his way to do just that, crouching to examine the albums in Crowley’s collection[2], when something in the next room catches his eye. It’s a sort of study, he supposes, though without any books or even a computer. There is, however, a positively ludicrous ornate red and gold desk in the middle of the room, and on it, sitting perfectly innocently as though it were the most unremarkable thing in the world, a tartan thermos.

Aziraphale’s blood runs cold. He straightens and moves stiffly towards it; behind him on the couch Crowley shoots to his feet with a curse, crossing the room in great strides as though to overtake him. But Aziraphale is fast when he wants to be, and right now he wants to be. “Crowley,” he breathes. “You didn’t.”

“It wasn’t for me,” the demon is saying, but his voice sounds far away. Aziraphale’s whole body feels _red_. There’s a buzzing in his ears and his vision briefly blurs before focusing in with laser-like precision on the thermos, then the dark, congealed pile formerly known as Ligur on the floor.

“What happened?” he breathes, not able to turn around and look at Crowley, unable to tear his eyes away from the tartan vial of death.

“Downstairs came for me,” Crowley says. He’s speaking slowly, in a low voice as though trying to calm a frightened animal. “I told you, I wanted it for insurance. It wasn’t for me. It was never for me.”

“You could’ve been killed!” Aziraphale whirls around to face him now, breathing hard, eyes wide, a slightly mad feeling humming under his skin. “Crowley, a single drop would have destroyed you!”

The demon _tsks_ slightly and moves to duck past him. “Look, I’ll clear it away,” he starts to say, but Aziraphale inserts himself in the doorway, arms thrown wide, and physically prevents him from entering the room.

“You’ll do no such thing,” he thunders. “Get out of here, don’t go near it!”

“Aziraphale,” Crowley looks stunned at this sudden, emphatic protectiveness. “There isn’t even any left. It’ll all have dried now and…”

“I don’t care!” Aziraphale interrupts him, voice high and pitchy, desperate-sounding. “Crowley it could have killed you! This puddle on the floor could be you! Oh, I never should have given it to you in the first place,” he’s babbling now, knows it, but he can’t stop the words pouring out of him. “One drop, one single drop, that’s all it would take. One drop and you’d be a pile of, of steaming goo! You’d be gone and, and where would that leave me?”

Crowley physically draws back. He blinks twice, draws in a sharp breath, and explodes.

“Where would that leave _you_?” he shouts back. “You _did_ die, Assziraphale, or don’t you remember? Got discorporated, _poof_ , gone. And I ran into your ssstupid bookshop, flamesss everywhere and I couldn’t find you and the world was ending and I was all alone!” His yellow eyes are huge, pupils blown wide as he pants. “I _assked_ you to come with me! But ‘we’re not friends, Crowley’, ‘we’re on opposite sides, Crowley’, remember? You don’t even like me!” He flings these last words at the angel as though they burn his mouth. Great, rapid breaths rattle in his thin chest as he stands, red hair standing on end, for once looking every inch the demon that Aziraphale is always reminding him that he is.

Aziraphale opens his mouth. Closes it again. Swallows. And six thousand years catch up to him with the force of a biblical event. Or an infernal one. An apocalypse, perhaps.

All those years of insisting he’s the divine one, he’s the angelic being, when it’s always been Crowley who has held out his hand. Crowley, who has never hesitated to call him friend, who has turned up in the tightest and most dangerous of spots and pulled him out of harm’s way. And he’s denied him at almost every turn, clinging to his righteousness not out of duty, he realizes, or out of moral obligation or devotion to Heaven, or any of it. Out of fear. Fear of the thing that has bloomed in his heart for millennia, that became inescapable one night in a church during the Blitz and has kept him drawing nearer and nearer to the flames ever since. _I can’t have you risking your life,_ he had said. Never mind that every rescue had been just that. And Crowley has just gone on saving books and mending jackets, offering rides and – well – turning up. Being there. “Oh, bollocks,” says the angel.

Crowley is still standing in the doorway, curled in on himself like a wounded thing and hissing through his teeth, hurt and anger showing plain in his face. His lovely face. Aziraphale takes a breath and steps forward, wrapping his arms around the shaking demon. Crowley instantly goes stiff. “What is this. What’re you doing.”

“I’m hugging you, you idiot.” He tightens his arms, enough that Crowley can’t slither out of them. They’re both silent for a few moments, or maybe hours or days or years, and Aziraphale isn’t sure whose heart it is that he can feel hammering. Crowley doesn’t relax, but neither does he try to get away. Gradually his breathing evens out. And then the unthinkable happens and Aziraphale feels him drop his head onto his shoulder and let out a long, shuddering sigh. He realizes that they’re swaying slightly, side to side like a very awkward pendulum. “It occurs me that perhaps I’ve been a bit of a bastard,” he says, resting his chin cautiously on top of Crowley’s head. His hair is soft and it smells expensive, tickling his cheeks and his nose in a pleasant, almost familiar sort of way. A snuffle comes from the vicinity of his shoulder.

“Just enough of one,” is the muffled reply. Aziraphale laughs breathlessly at that, more of an exhale than anything else. Cautiously, so cautiously because comforting the desperate may technically be his stock in trade but this is something entirely else, he slides his hand up Crowley’s back and over the nape of his neck to rest softly on the back of his head. “We almost lost it all,” Crowley says nonsensically. “Queues and the ducks and… and lunch at the Ritz. Parking tickets. Chewing gum. The stock exchange.” _Each other_ , he does not say.

Aziraphale pulls back, looks the demon in the eyes. “I know,” he says. “But we didn’t.” Crowley’s gaze is watery. His face is pinched. He looks exhausted. He looks frightened. He looks so incredibly young. But he doesn’t look away. “I would be devastated if I lost you, Crowley,” Aziraphale says, meaning it. He keeps his words low, gentle, deliberate. “You’re so very dear to me.”

“I’m a demon,” Crowley says back. His voice is almost a whisper and his yellow eyes are wide. Aziraphale is shocked that he isn’t pulling away. They both seem caught in this strange, sacred moment, like two motes of dust in an afternoon sunbeam or insects suspended in amber.

“I know,” he says, and his heart breaks open. _Fuck it_ , says the part of him that no longer cares about divine retribution. That has never cared, really. The part of him that’s _him_ , and that is _so tired_ of holding back. “I love you anyway.”

Crowley’s sharp intake of breath is terrifying. For a horrible moment Aziraphale knows he’s ruined six thousand years of friendship. He’s planning his apology, mentally locating his coat and trying to remember where he can catch the bus back to Soho, wondering what the depths of the Amazon rainforest are like this time of year and how he can get there, when Crowley starts laughing. It’s low and shaky, and it’s a laugh of disbelief – not of mockery or hubris or worst of all dismissal. He tucks his head back under Aziraphale’s chin and the angel feels his arms come around him, clutching at his shoulders.

“Think ‘m hallucinating,” the demon rasps against his neck. “Th’ pressure’sss got to me ‘n I’m cracking up.” He looks up at Aziraphale and his eyes are warm, crinkled at the corners where he’s smiling, looking as vulnerable and as hopeful as the angel has ever seen him.

“Oh don’t be ridiculous,” Aziraphale says, and kisses him. Crowley kisses him back immediately, without hesitation. He tastes of wine and salt. Aziraphale isn’t sure what he was expecting. Brimstone, perhaps. They stand there in the doorway for a long time, there in front of the melted remains of one of Hell’s denizens, experiencing this new and impossible thing. They chase each other’s mouths, learning this new language, this conversation with everything except words. It’s soft and sweet, thrilling, somehow comforting and electric all at once. It’s innocent until it’s not, and Aziraphale slides his fingers into Crowley’s hair at the same moment that Crowley nips his bottom lip and suddenly they’re stumbling together and the angel is backing the demon up against the wall although he has no idea where he got that idea from and Crowley makes a noise that could be a gasp and could be a hiss but is probably both.

He feels Crowley’s fingers at his throat, tugging on his bowtie. Feels it slip from his collar and vanish somewhere – most likely the floor. He’s running his hands up and down the demon’s arms and then he’s undoing buttons but he can’t see because they’re still kissing and his fingers are so clumsy because he’s really never done this before, not to someone else. Crowley huffs and pushes him away slightly, just long enough to pull his shirt up and over his shoulders and off. It goes to the place where bowties go and Aziraphale has just enough time to register his flushed lips and mussed hair and wonder if he looks the same before Crowley launches himself back at him and the kissing and the stumbling are happening again, but now with _skin_ and that’s different and wonderful in every way that a thing can be.

He takes a step back and then another, and somehow they’re traveling through space. He disengages and looks behind him, seeking the couch as the most logical place to continue their… this. What they’re doing. What he very much wants to keep doing. Crowley parses the direction of his thoughts and abruptly shakes his head. “No,” he says. “Not there. Bloody uncomfortable, that thing.”

Aziraphale sags with relief. He hadn’t really been thinking clearly, but some part of him _had_ registered that the couch seemed… less than optimal. “Your sofa should be classified as a war crime,” he huffs and Crowley throws his head back. Laughs.

“’S why I bought it,” he says, grinning. “Stops company from coming round.” They stand, still touching, both panting and disheveled and suddenly it dawns on Aziraphale how ridiculous this all is. How absurd. That the world hasn’t ended and neither of them have been destroyed, and now he’s _kissing Crowley_ in this ludicrous apartment and no one is smiting anyone. He leans in, kisses him again. And then again.

“Bedroom’s that way,” Crowley says against his mouth, utterly failing to indicate a direction in any meaningful way. But then he stops him with a hand against his chest. “Is this… d’you want…” He takes a step back, runs a hand through his hair and takes a deep breath, fixing Aziraphale with a look and holding it. “ _Am I going to fast for you?_ ”

Aziraphale blinks. His heart is thundering and his body is quite a lot of steps ahead of his mind, really. Making the effort indeed. And he supposes it _is_ quite fast, to go from six thousand years of complicated friendship and firmly established rules that they have merrily broken, though not without consequence, to what they are about to do. What he hopes they are about to do. He looks at Crowley, messy and shirtless and looking so _hopeful_ and he realizes he has never regretted saying anything in his life more than he regrets what he said that night. He swallows hard and shakes his head. “Not at all.”

Crowley _hisses_.

If the couch was a lesson in hostile design, the bed is positively luxurious. Crowley might put on a big show of trendy minimalism in the rest of the flat, but when it comes to the place where he does his sleeping he is clearly pulling no punches. It’s a huge king-size four-poster with one of those ultra modern canopy frames that very deliberately has no curtains whatsoever hanging from it. It’s piled high with heavy, plush white bedding that simultaneously looks incredibly expensive and almost sinfully comfortable. Crowley takes his hand and leads him to it almost shyly, sitting down on the edge and pulling Aziraphale down next to him. He sits, staring at their joined hands and running his thumb slowly over Aziraphale’s. Sensing that something important is about to happen, is already happening, Aziraphale waits. Finally Crowley looks up at him, and there is something so momentous in his gaze, like the feeling he sensed in Tadfield but distilled into a person and leveled directly at him. _Love_ , he realizes. The demon is radiating love. At him. For him. It is by far the holiest thing he has ever experienced.

“I thought,” Crowley finally starts to say, “or I didn’t think. I…” he stops, stares at him hopelessly, finally settles on “ _fuck_ Aziraphale.”

“I know,” Aziraphale says reassuringly, and he does know. He does. He squeezes Crowley’s fingers in his own, slides his other hand tentatively over the side of his face, brushing his thumb over the snake on his temple. Crowley leans into the heat of his palm, his eyes closing briefly.

“You know,” Crowley starts again, “you know we can stop any time. Just say the word. I won’t – we don’t have to. Do anything.” There is something so terribly aching in his voice. Disbelief, maybe. Aziraphale holds his gaze.

“I know,” he says. “Of course I know.” He leans in slowly, finds Crowley’s lips again, slides his tongue past them deliberately.

The sheets are cool and delicious when they finally tumble into them. Somewhere along the way Aziraphale’s jacket and waistcoat and shirt and vest have gone, and his trousers and his socks and his shoes. Crowley is similarly bare and his skin is burning. They’re both burning. Have been burning forever, Aziraphale thinks hazily. Will go on burning for a long while more. From there it’s touching, grasping and clutching and soft noises and louder ones as well. Sounds that are his and sounds that are Crowley’s, sharp inhales and astonished, desperate exhales. Crowley’s fingers twisting in the soft white pillows, in Aziraphale’s soft white hair. His own hands everywhere, his lips on the column of Crowley’s long, white neck. Hissing. Quite a lot of hissing. “ _Assssziraphale_.”

Later, so much later they are cocooned together in the still, white covers. It was late when they arrived at the flat, but now tendrils of sunlight are peeking in through the windows. Aziraphale finds it rather nice but Crowley grumbles and tugs the duvet over both of their heads, shutting it out, preserving the little world they have created for just a bit longer. It’s almost like Heaven, Aziraphale thinks, all that white. But nicer. Less bureaucratic, for one thing. Also there are a number of things he now knows Crowley can do with his tongue that Heaven would _not_ approve of.

“All right?” murmurs Crowley and his eyelids are drooping. He’s fighting to stay awake, the intensity of the last few days crashing up against his natural proclivity for slumber. He’s stroking Aziraphale’s temple absently and Aziraphale catches his hand, brings it to his lips.

“Perfectly,” he says, and he is. For the first time in a while, he thinks.

“S’good,” says Crowley, and he’s gone, breathing even and eyes fluttering closed. Aziraphale pulls him in tight, slides his arms around his body and tucks his head beneath his chin, brushing his lips against his forehead. A quick miracle, almost an afterthought, and his copy of the _Odyssey_ appears in his hand. He opens it to where he left off last night, to the page he had read again and again without meaning to.

 _Sleep, delicious and profound,_ he reads. _The very counterfeit of death._ Ah. It’s not quite Agnes Nutter, he supposes, but it will have to do. He shuts the book and then his eyes, breathing in the scent of Crowley all around him, savouring the warm weight of him in his arms. Some decisions can’t be prescribed, after all, but some can. And Aziraphale thinks he’s learned at last, _at last_ , to tell the difference.

 

[1] Uncharacteristically because, in the established order of things, it is usually Aziraphale who asks this.

[2] Which may or may not contain a signed first-pressing of _A Night at the Opera_.

**Author's Note:**

> First time posting. Accomplished lurker. Read the book as a teenager, waited for the show like it was a new iPhone, have watched it one million times now. David Tennant gives me Feelings.


End file.
